Britain’s Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) and Singapore’s Hong Leong Group (豐隆集團) have announced plans to invest in Taiwan’s hotel industry.
IHG last week signed deals to open hotels in Xiamen, China, Hong Kong and Taipei, adding more than 700 rooms to its Asia-Pacific portfolio.
TAIPEI EXPANSION
Its Holiday Inn Express brand will be the banner establishment for a 170-room Taipei development that will open next year, while a 300-room property in Mongkok in Hong Kong is set to be unveiled in 2013, the -Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday.
Its boutique brand, Indigo, will open branches in two locations next year, including a 125-room hotel in Taipei and another 127-room establishment in Xiamen, China.
The Taiwanese expansion is part of a plan by IHG, the world’s biggest hotel group by number of rooms, to increase its presence in its Greater China portfolio, which includes markets in China, Mongolia and Taiwan.
HONG LEONG
Meanwhile, Hong Leong — a conglomerate with businesses spanning hotel management, financial services and real estate — said it would invest in three hotels in Taipei and Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) in Nantou County, with the first deal expected to be signed by next month. With partners MarkWell Group (午陽企業集團), its first hotel project in Taiwan will be launched in the fourth quarter next year, it said.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
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Micron Technology Inc is a driving force pushing the US Congress to pass legislation that would put new export restrictions on equipment its Chinese competitors use to make their chips, according to people familiar with the matter. A US House of Representatives panel yesterday was to vote on the “MATCH Act,” a bill designed to close gaps in restrictions on chipmaking equipment. It would also pressure foreign companies that sell equipment to Chinese chipmaking facilities to align with export curbs on US companies like Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc. The bill targets facilities operated by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc